This really has nothing to do with religion. It could just as well have been a rare painting of George Washington in a museum "fixed" by an atheist cleaning woman, and it would be just as funny...or beautiful, I guess.

It is fine to mock this poor woman my Dear Crack. Enjoy it. Revel in it.

Oh yeah, like ALL I'm mocking is an old woman. The belief system gets a total pass, but that one good intentioned old woman? Why I'm ready to slap a "dunce" cap on her and hit her with rotten tomatoes in the public square.

I'm not religious. In fact I'm a small "a" atheist, by which I mean my atheism is an absence of belief merely, and not a counter-belief in the foolishness or gullibility of believers. As long as believers leave me alone, and refrain from confusing science and religion, I grant them the tolerance I wish they'd grant me. Which is why I must disagree with Crack.

A "some religion-addled old biddy" f-ed up a minor fresco, so what? This could just as easily been the work of a secular dilettante. I know a few self-professed "artists", persons whose confidence exceeds their talent, who could pull a similar boner without any religious motivation.

"Quaestor said... ... A "some religion-addled old biddy" f-ed up a minor fresco, so what? This could just as easily been the work of a secular dilettante. I know a few self-professed "artists", persons whose confidence exceeds their talent, who could pull a similar boner without any religious motivation."

Quaestor is right. What it truly is is a case of a piece of artwork getting screwed up. Concentrating on the religious aspect of the narrative is missing the point.

I would no more mock an old woman who tried to restore the face of our Lord than I would mock a so called man who was so worthless as a husband and a lover that his bride had to go on a murder spree to occupy her time.

BZ: She is just an old woman who loves her God and tried to do her best to honor him by repairing an image.

Oh come on, Baron. It's awful. And funny, And scary looking. All at once. It's just face-palm, guffaw, lord help us godawful. How can one not comment? They're face-palming and guffawing all over some of the Catholic blogs I follow, so it's not all about "mocking faith".

Besides, we don't really know much about the poor old thing who got in over her head. I doubt many, if any, of the "mockers" aren't feeling sorry for her. But come on. You have to have a heart of stone...

Yes you will laugh at them. This poor woman's faith and her desire to honor it by repairing her church is most deserving of you mocking her.

You always do."

Oh come on, I burst out laughing too and I'm a man of faith. It;s hilarious. Sorry, I'm defending Althouse here. I don't think she mocks Christianity as much as she genuinely doesn't understand it. Very, very few people do.

The Crack Emcee said..."And - for those of you insulted by our mockery - don't forget, you've chosen to be "fools for Christ," so suck it up, be stoic, and "turn the other cheek."

It is we who are under no such self-imposed limitations,..."

Yeah we're supposed to turn the other cheek, but eventually you run out of them. The Anti-Chrisitan bigotry in our culture is pretty remarkable. Just more evidence we are living in the end times.

Jesus is going to make you all look like fools. I know for a fact the Gospels are 100% true.

It didn't originate with me, but in a statement Jesus made about faith. As far as geniuses for Christ go, haven't seen any. Christopher Hitchens used to debate the cream of the crop (such as they are) and won every time. And I tried watching Ben Stein's movie on the existence of God, but it was so silly I couldn't finish it.

jeff,

"And - for those of you insulted by our mockery - don't forget, you've chosen to be "fools for Christ," so suck it up, be stoic, and "turn the other cheek." It is we who are under no such self-imposed limitations,…"Which is the reason Islam is rarely mocked. At least publicly. Which makes the ones that do mock Christianity kind of chicken shit, but whatever floats your boat.

You do know who you're talking to, don't you? Are you suggesting I haven't mocked Islam? Or are you merely one of those dummies who think the claim nobody does it, coupled with their propensity for violence, is some kind of a Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card for silly beliefs? You know - Muslims act out and Christians silently reap the benefits from it? (Clever.)

Baron Zemo,

I would no more mock an old woman who tried to restore the face of our Lord than I would mock a so called man who was so worthless as a husband and a lover that his bride had to go on a murder spree to occupy her time. God has his own way of responding to those who mock him. In his own way and in his own time.

LOL. Christian hypocrisy at it's finest. That one post is a violation of your own stated beliefs on so many levels you might as well drop any pretense of calling yourself a Christian. I certainly won't regard you as one.

Icepick,

We could decide to not act like a dick.

Now that's just silly. I'm a heathen. Why would I "decide" not to behave like one? So I can be as big of a hypocrite as Baron Zemo's example above (or jeff's "chickenshit" comment, or the Muslim in the video I linked to, or the Mormons in this one)?

No, I'm going to continue to laugh whenever these posers - or "our Lord" - fail to live up to their own teachings and claims, not trying to be nice while they attempt to control other's behavior.

You can fall for the smoke-and-mirrors routine if you choose, but me?

I'ma be as big a dick as the beliefs around me dick-tate.

That way, everyone knows I respect what's being said and done, even if they don't.

I would no more mock an old woman who tried to restore the face of our Lord than I would mock a so called man who was so worthless as a husband and a lover that his bride had to go on a murder spree to occupy her time.

My wife was a believer. Somebody playing on your team. She went to church every Sunday, and killed while performing "faith healing." Religion and "spirituality" is how she occupied the majority of her time.

So I'd say, if I'm "worthless," that makes you and your beliefs - which drove you to make what YOU KNEW were ugly comments - even lower on the scale.

What religion drives people to do is but one reason why I'll never participate in it.

I'm sure Cecilia Gimenez didn't set out to make Jesus look like a monkey in a bathrobe. I am also sure she was as shocked as anybody by the appearance of the "restored" fresco. When she finished her work with the paint still wet the job probably looked fairly good, not that this justifies her effort. But painting on plaster is not like painting on canvas, or any other medium most artists, amateur and professional, ever deal with.

Painting on dry plaster is almost impossible, unless one uses an airbrush. Dry plaster is extremely porous. Seen under a microscope the surface reveals a maze of tiny interconnected tunnels which will conduct paint by capillary action to areas you never touched with your brush, or to areas of different color.

To paint on plaster the plaster must be wet (Fresco is just Italian for fresh, as in fresh, wet plaster) Fresco painting is high speed art. If you don't finish the job before the plaster dries the plaster must be chipped off the wall and new plaster applied, you can't just re-wet the surface.

This is why fresco restoration is so difficult. Old frescoes can be cleaned, but if the plaster is chipped or eroded there's little that can be done about the missing paint. Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel is a good example. There was a major restoration effort started in the 1970s which took decades to finish. They mainly cleaned the plaster of 400 years of soot from candle and incense smoke. The Da Vinci "Last Supper" restoration was also a cleaning, but less successful than the Sistine Chapel project because the plaster had been damaged by mildew.

The reason why paint is applied to wet plaster is that the water fills the spaces that become those tiny tunnels evident in dry plaster. Since oil and water don't mix the paint floats on the water and doesn't penetrate deep enough to be drawn off by capillary action to some other place on the surface. The paint dries before the water finally escapes, and forms little perforated caps over the pours which allows the whole creation to breathe along with the underlying medium, which is why frescoes can endure for many centuries with little maintenance.